I reached out to a prospective client the other day only to have them reply with a simple “no thank you”. In that moment, while reading their reply, I felt rejected.
There was nothing wrong with the reply. It was polite and to the point. How I internalized it was the issue.
This used to be a pattern of mine.
If I asked a girl out on a date and she said “no” I took it personally as if there was something wrong with me. The “no” in my world equaled rejection.
If I went out for a job interview and the recruiter sent me a follow up email saying “thank you but we’re going in different direction” I took it as a personal rejection.
In my first sales job out of college if a prospective client said “no thank you” or “I’m no longer interested” I internalized it and made up stories about myself.
I had a false core belief that there was something wrong with me.
See?! I’m not good enough!
The email was a reminder of how I used to be.
After a minute or two of feeling rejected I cleaned things up internally and took the email for what it really was - information. That’s right, information.
To quote a mentor of mine “What the ‘no’ tells me is that she or he will not be working with me right now.” That same logic can apply to any of the scenarios listed above.
If you internalize the word “no” to mean rejection that means you’re creating a story. When you do this you have to deal with the feelings that come up around the story as well. And when this happens you miss out on an opportunity to connect with someone else because you're too busy self-loathing.
It’s all about how you’re taking care of yourself.
Do you have an open mind and the willingness to grow and see challenges like this as opportunities for learning in disguise? If you let it, this lesson can allow you to become someone stronger then when you first started but only if you make the choice.
Sometimes the stories that we tell ourselves are from our past conditioning and they can take time to fade away. Just remember that a “no” doesn’t mean you’ve been rejected. It’s just information.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear about it.
Love,
Zachary